In the Meantime
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: January, 1992, the Slytherin first years have their weekly meeting to discuss what to do about the now missing Ellie Potter and Daphne Greengrass wonders if there isn't something a little peculiar about Hermione Granger. Side fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus"


**Author's Note: To those of you about to read this fic I offer fair warning that this is a side fic to the increadibly AU "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and I don't know how much you can get away with without having read the original fic. So with that in mind do whatever you please, but you have been warned.**

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Despite what the Gryffindors probably thought Slytherins didn't usually have secret meetings in the dungeons to discuss their ambitions and goals. Of course, most Gryffindors were idiots, and didn't realize there was a difference in being a Death Eater and being a school-aged child studying for exams and attempting to bring his or her family honor.

Hogwarts was about preparing for the future, about networking, forming alliances and connections, keeping tradition alive, and seeing to it that power was contained within certain families.

It was not about creating revolution, killing muggle borns, or devouring children like the Gryffindors claimed.

That was for after Hogwarts.

But desperate times called for desperate measures.

The first years alone, without _her _of course, had already met multiple times. It became almost a weekly occurrence to meet and discuss _her _and the actions best taken to mitigate the possible damage over the next six years. They had realized fairly quickly that it was impossible to reverse the damage, to stop the damage, but that it was possible to lessen it if they were resourceful and quick enough to spot a disaster before it occurred.

They were the guardians of their house, constantly protecting both Slytherin and Hogwarts itself from the cataclysm that was _her _whims and _her _insanity.

After they had returned from Christmas, after they had each noticed the newest problem, they had come together for their weekly midnight meeting to discuss the Eleanor Potter problem.

They didn't often have secret meetings like this in Slytherin but when they did they attempted to do it in style. Or at least, that's what Daphne Greengrass thought Malfoy, Nott, and Parkinson were attempting to do. It just came out looking fairly ridiculous, with her and Zabini staring at them all wondering why it was this year, of all years that they had to be sorted into Slytherin. The third years and second years didn't have it so bad, they didn't have Parkinson, Crabbe, or Goyle.

The three of them were seated in slightly higher chairs than everyone else, Pansy having claimed hers out of sheer persistence and whining, Draco Malfoy as the heir to the Malfoy line and thus the wealthiest and most powerful out of all of them, and Nott because he believed himself to be a great leader. Sometimes, Daphne couldn't help but wonder, if Slytherin might be fostering ambition to an almost absurd degree.

"I'm sure you all recognize why we're here tonight." Malfoy started, bringing his hands together and staring out at his peers, "It seems the girl who lived is at it again, already into the new term, and has disappeared from school along with the Defense Professor."

That wasn't the official story. The official story, when it became clear that both Quirrell and Eleanor Lily Potter were missing, was that Quirrell had supposedly managed to kidnap the girl who lived.

Perhaps this was true, but she'd never heard of anything like that happening before, Hogwarts was built as a fortress before it was a school and thus its wards were very difficult to breech. It was hard to imagine that someone could be kidnapped just like that.

Another thought, that might not occur to the rest of the school, was that this was Ellie bloody Potter and if anyone could never be kidnapped then it was Ellie bloody Potter and something else was defiantly going on.

"Maybe she dropped out." Zabini proposed with open hands, and they each considered that for a moment. It was a possibility, she'd never seemed to enjoy their classes, and her only friends were Gryffindor idiots so maybe she'd gotten bored of tearing apart Hogwarts and just decided to leave.

"And Quirrell's gone missing at the exact same time because…? Not to mention that Dumbledore would never allow her to simply drop out." Daphne pointed out, the last thing the wizarding community needed was the untrained girl who lived running around London causing things to explode. If anyone needed to be trained, contained, then it was the girl who lived.

"She and Quirrell always had those weird detentions, maybe they were secretly lovers." Davis pointed out with a little too much enthusiasm for anyone's wellbeing.

It didn't even need to be said that this suggestion was immediately thrown out the window.

"It doesn't matter why she's missing, we need to decide what to do about it." Malfoy said with a sigh, crossing his arms.

"Do about it?" Crabbe asked, looking as if he had only just started listening to the conversation.

"Do we say good riddance or do we actively search for her?" Nott clarified.

It was an interesting question, Daphne wasn't sure. On the one hand the aurors were looking for her in full force so there was no need for them to search even if they wanted to but on the other hand she suspected that Eleanor Potter would be someone difficult to find.

She also had a suspicion, after too many hours spent thinking on the subject, that there was more to this whole thing than Quirrell and an alleged kidnapping.

Daphne Greengrass had been watching carefully, and she'd made a passing comment to Zabini once, that Hermione Granger was very different than she'd been before break. She looked drawn, dark circles beneath her eyes, but more so she looked sharp as if she had been shattered like glass and would now cut anyone that tried to touch her.

Someone had taken her righteousness, her irritating need to be superior in every class, from her so that when she turned in her perfect assignments it was only with a cold and dead gaze.

Quirrell, Hermione, Ellie Potter, these were their clues and no one seemed to be paying them much mind at all.

"If she isn't found soon they may fire Dumbledore, perhaps even close the school." Malfoy said, he probably wouldn't be put out if Dumbledore was dismissed but no one wanted Hogwarts closed.

"So then we look for her." Zabini concluded.

"No, not while we're in school, but over the summer if she hasn't returned we each convince our parents to put on more pressure. Britain's not that big of a country; there's not that many places she could be." Nott said shaking his head.

Then, it seemed to be time for Parkinson's weekly idiotic interruption, which was surprisingly late in the meeting given it was Pansy Parkinson, "I don't see why any of us are looking for her, it's not like any of us liked her anyway, she was always trying to get us to lose the cup! I say goodbye, Eleanor Potter, have a nice life being kidnapped by Quirrell!"

If they met weekly to discuss Ellie Potter then Pansy Parkinson weekly got a chance to stick her foot further into her mouth and try to convince everyone to take her seriously. Six years, Daphne sometimes caught herself thinking, she'd be stuck with this for six years. It was times like this that she was grateful for the mysterious flaw in the dorm design that had stuck her into a single.

"If they haven't found her by summer I don't know if she's going to be found at all." Daphne aid to distract from Pansy, that and she wasn't sure putting on more pressure would work.

Lucius Malfoy was to be sure to be sending his goons out to find her; to somehow get her into his power. Not to mention it'd be a coup for the minister to find her. Basically anyone who had it out for Dumbledore or who was even a concerned citizen was desperately trying to find the girl who lived.

No, there were plenty of people already looking for Ellie Potter.

What none of them wanted to say, or to admit in this secret meeting, was that when it came to Ellie Potter in general they were pretty much helpless.

Ellie Potter was like a great storm, rather than a person, she couldn't be reasoned with or stopped only endured until she passed over them. They were eleven and twelve year olds, they may be the heirs to their families but that didn't mean they had power yet, only the potential for power.

And none of that would help them find Eleanor Potter.

They sat their stupidly in silence, each waiting for the other to come up with some brilliant idea, but it seemed they were all at a loss for words. As weird as it sounded Ellie Potter belonged to Slytherin, sure she'd ruined their chances at the house cup, daily insulted and humiliated their head of house, and had even humiliated them but she was still a Slytherin. It was an unspoken but known rule that the house came first and even though she might disregard it the rule still applied to her.

She couldn't just leave in the middle of the term as if there was nothing tying her back to them.

The meeting ended far more quickly and with a lot less shouting than many of their previous meetings, there really was nothing more to say, and she found herself lingering in the common room with Zabini and staring into the fire.

"Do you think Quirrell kidnapped her?" She asked him and he scoffed, looking at her like she was an idiot.

"You remember Quirrell, don't you?"

It was a fair point, she doubted a normal wizard could kidnap Ellie Potter, let alone Quirrell. Still, Hermione Granger, Quirrell, and Eleanor Potter were all tied in this together somehow. And if it wasn't kidnapping… then what was it?

"Something's going on." Daphne said, "I just don't know what it is."

Zabini said nothing to this but by looking at his face she could see he agreed; too much was going on for it to just be about Eleanor Potter.

"We should confront Granger, you and I, not the rest of these blasted idiots." Daphne said sneering at the last words, they hadn't seemed this stupid before they came to Hogwarts but something about the girl who lived brought the worst out of everyone.

"How would you suggest that? At the moment she looks as if she'd kill someone if they step too close; her hand's always on her wand, have you noticed?"

She had, it's why she hadn't tried already, right now it was as if there was a bubble around her saying 'do not touch', for now confronting Hermione Granger wasn't an option. The trouble was it was the only place she could think of to start.

"I can try to warm up to her." Daphne said causing Zabini to chuckle.

"You, the ice queen?" He asked, how she'd picked up that name already she had no idea, but she hated it all the same. He was a bit of an ice queen himself, he had no room to talk to her that way.

"I said I can try, she probably wants to discuss it…"

"She might not be as soft as we think she is; she hasn't talked yet has she?" Zabini said, and it was true because Daphne had never caught her crying or looking weak. Something in her had died, had shattered, but she was not weak because of it.

"It will take time, but I can try." She said, and that seemed to be the end of it, because as an eleven year old girl that was all she could do at the moment and she didn't hold illusions that she could do any more than that.

For a moment they continued to sit in silence, both staring into the fire, and then Zabini casually began talking; as if they really were friends instead of allies forced together by their mutual sanity in a year filled with chaos.

"Well, at the very least, it means we're not going to have one of these stupid meetings for a while." Zabini said with a forced smile, "Merlin knows if they come up with another ambush scheme I will resign from Slytherin and become a Hufflepuff."

"And History of Magic is bound to be much less violent." Daphne added, giving him her own forced smile.

They stared at each other for a moment, all the implications of a missing Eleanor Potter sinking in, and the castle seemed so empty without her overwhelming presence.

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**Author's Note: Written for the 100th review of "Eleanor Potter and the Train Station Called Purgatory" by halfcoop who asked for a fic where "Slytherin housemates meet to discuss the problem that is Eleanor Potter". Not only the Goblins have secret meetings about Lily but the Slytherins do too, at any rate this takes place in Lily's semester abroad. **

**Thanks for reading and reviews are much appreciated.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**


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